America’s Cup: Ben Ainslie and the British face the New Zealand wall

The British have been waiting for this for sixty years. Saturday in Barcelona begins the final clash for the 37th America’s Cup, between the defender Team New Zealand and its challenger Ineos Britannia, led by a Ben Ainslie on a mission.

Manhandled during the preliminary regattas and long criticized for the lack of reliability of their sailboat, Ainslie’s men finally defied the predictions by making it to the match for the silver ewer against the double title holder.

“This is a very proud moment as Britons, who are very proud of our sporting and maritime heritage. The America’s Cup is the only thing that continues to be missing from our list of achievements.” said the 47-year-old helmsman, a multiple Olympic medalist, during a press conference on Friday.

“We launched this challenge ten years ago, Great Britain was no longer even part of the competition”he exulted after his victory in the final of the Louis-Vuitton Cup, for whom the oldest sporting trophy in the world is “an obsession”.

For both teams, the stakes are high, like the impressive masts of the AC75s of this 37th edition (26.5 m). If the Kiwis win, they will become the first country to lift the Cup three times in a row since the United States (1987, 1988, 1992).

While on the other side of the Channel, people have dreamed of winning it since the very first edition, in 1851, when the British Royal Yacht Squadron was defeated by an American Yacht Club, which took the opportunity to define the name of the competition.

Revolution

From October 12 to 27, the Cup will return to the first camp achieving seven victories. And in the Bay of Barcelona, ​​the show promises to be exhilarating between two teams with radically different profiles.

The British have not appeared in the final since 1964. But in the wake of winning the Cup in 2013 as tactician in the American Oracle challenge, sailor Ben Ainslie, a four-time Olympic champion, decided to reignite the English dream.

Despite a failed 2021 edition after the arrival of sponsor Ineos, the team decided to set up in Brackley, Mercedes HQ, to benefit from the tools, engineers and expertise of one of the best F1 manufacturers of the world.

This controversial revolution in the history of the America’s Cup paid off. From regatta to regatta, the Ineos sailboat has continued to progress, proving to be the fastest of the five challengers, including in tough conditions.

Unlike the British, who have changed almost everything in the way they operate over the last ten years, the New Zealanders embody “the reference” ultimate in terms of continuity.

“Reference boat”

“It’s a winning machine, they have the reference boat, the budget, men who know how to design, develop and sail… everything is on point in their project”summed up Bruno Dubois, co-director of the French challenge, at the start of the competition.

Kiwi boss Grant Dalton has been at the helm since 2003 and his engineers all have several successful campaigns on their impressive CVs. As defenders, they also benefit from the comfortable advantage of having defined all the rules of this 37 edition.

At the helm of their AC75, they can count on sailor Peter Burling, the youngest skipper to win the Cup, at 26 in 2017, and now in the race for an incredible hat-trick.

“I think the whole point of the America’s Cup is that you don’t really know where you are until you line up for the first start. But we are really satisfied with everything we have put together”declared the New Zealand helmsman.

Automatically qualified for the America’s Cup, the New Zealanders still took part in the first Louis-Vuitton regattas to get their hands on the tricky waters of Barcelona.

Unsurprisingly, they dominated the five other challenges in the standings, easily winning eight of their ten matches. But they came away tied from their direct confrontations against the British (1-1), a sign that the game is perhaps not won in advance…